Title: Sad Fantasy Girl
Author: RavenWolf
Disclaimer: So not mine.
Pairing: Tess/Max, implied Max/Liz
Spoiler: Four Square, and the majority of first season (duh)
Muse # 23-Story must take place during Season 1.
It really felt a lot like falling, Tess decided. She sat complacently beside Max in the Jeep. Or drowning, maybe. She was still trying to reconcile the Max she’d always dreamed about with the real thing. The real thing was a lot colder and more suspicious than her Dream Max. She couldn’t get the image of his hand shoving her face into the dirt, demanding to see her ‘true face’. In the long run, it was only an inconsequential thing, but it still hurt. Burned, almost. She would always remember that moment, no matter what ended up happening.
Max didn’t look at her. He didn’t talk to her, just sat there stoically, like the gentleman he was. After all, even though she felt like she knew him, he’d never even thought of her before she’d shown up in his life. Before she’d actually had to worm her way into his head to get him to notice her. Mind-warping Max was the equivalent of jumping up and down, waving her arms, and screaming ‘Look at me, dammit!’
He stopped in front of her house. “Have a good day, Tess,” he said cordially as she stepped out of the car. She had the urge to slow all her movements down, to prolong the moment when he would be gone and she would be left with only Nasedo and Dream Max to keep her company.
When he stared at her oddly, she realized she was actually doing it. Blushing, she hopped out of the car and into her wonderfully arid and deserted Roswell home. Max drove away without a glance back. She realized suddenly that he wasn’t being cruel; it was simply that she didn’t register with him. She was not important in his life, she did not matter to him in more than the immediate term. It was a kind of hard truth that made her sad but un-resentful. After all, how could you argue with a truth you yourself had stated?
There was no one home when she stepped inside. Didn’t make a difference. She was just as alone as she’d ever been. Again there came the urge to feel self-pity, but why bother? Her life was what it was, and she knew it well.
***
She was at school the next day. Isabel, her friend, was a bright point of her day. Isabel was her link into the inner circle. Although she no longer knew that it mattered. She’d gotten into the inner circle; it hadn’t been the fun she’d thought it would be.
All the self-confidence that had come before had dried up and blown away like dust, for one thing. She’d spit out her big secret, laid her cards on the table, and not only had they not cared what she’d been holding in her hand, they hadn’t even looked! It was as if nothing had changed for them, nothing at all, even though her life’s biggest moment had passed by them all. She was still spinning in its wake, and they were already passing her by, careless and swift.
“Hey Isabel,” she said, smiling and waving. She felt a rankling of self-disgust at how pitiful she was, begging so obviously for attention. The nerd was trying to break into the cool kid circle, and the cool kids were having none of it.
“Hello, Tess,” Isabel said. Her voice had a chill yet suspicious quality. Didn’t Isabel trust her own sister-in-law? No, of course not, not when Max didn’t even trust her.
“I was hoping we could get together after school,” Tess said, tilting her head hopefully. “You know, talk about girl stuff.” She looked at Isabel conspiratorially. But Isabel wasn’t paying attention.
“Alex! Alex, over here!” she called. As she waited for Alex to get to the table, she turned her attention to Tess. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Tess. We have to, you know, keep a low profile. We don’t want too many people associating us with each other, stuff like that. I’m sure you understand; you’ve been dealing with it your whole life.”
Tess nodded. Yeah. Yeah, I understand.
She nodded. “Yeah, I guess. I’ll see you around, then.” She got up and left the table with the shreds of her dignity still clinging to her in tatters.
Max called her that night. “How did you get this number?” she asked, more out of curiosity than ungratefulness.
“Izzy. Listen, I kind of need to talk to you. When I kissed Liz this afternoon, I got this flash of--” Tess stopped listening when she heard ‘kissed Liz’. All she could think was Now you need me. NOW, when it has something to do with your beloved Liz. Now when YOU want it.
She held the receiver absently to her ear. Somewhere she thought she should be kind and listen and help. Someone long ago had told her to do that. To be nice to others and to have compassion and to help the people that you cared about.
Tess cared about Max. Just not the real one. She much preferred the Max she’d spent her childhood building up in her head. Because whenever she looked at Max, all she could feel was his rough hands on her face, forcing her down into the dirt.
Down into the dirt, where she’d stay until the day finally came for her to get up and strike back.